We went out to speak to sex workers, tested and tweaked our designs and app functionality in response to feedback. We were able to release a product that was usable and practical for sex workers because of their involvement at all stages of the development process.

The most conflicting aspect of feeling sorry for these women, and angry at the system that did this to them, was that I also grew up being told their job was empowering. It was liberating, as a woman, to have the agency to choose to sell your body for money, because your body is 'an asset' and yours to 'sell', if you so choose.

Sex worker unionisation is, thus, a work in progress and a battle still being fought out across the world. My book suggests that developing an occupational form of labour unionism is the best way forward to meet the continuing challenges involved in unionisation of sex workers.

Amnesty and the many other organisations that advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work are not saying that prostitution is a human right, or endorsing sex trafficking. Rather, they are asking for an end to the violence, state brutality, and stigma that sex workers face on a routine basis.

I can climb a pole. I'm pretty good at climbing poles. The kind of money I made climbing poles at Spearmint Rhino put me in the highest tax bracket for six years straight. I can climb that pole like a pro. You hang upside down and you twist your body around as you remove your dress.

Today, coming out as a sex worker is akin to coming out as a homosexual in the 1970s, most notably in Ireland. I experience everything from an unease around me to fear, obvious hatred and overt violence. Whorephobia, and the stigma that goes with that can kill.

A Way Out wants to be part of the support that ensures our women can make this choice. Rather than succumbing to negativity, concurring with stereotypical assumptions surrounding those in sex work, and agreeing with the generally accepted inevitability that change is impossible, we believe in possibility and potential...

As we drove around the borough after dark - car stacked with Kit Kats, coffee and condoms - I wondered if I'd even met a sex worker. I've read a lot, sure, but my grasp of the visceral reality was, like most people's, minimal.

Whenever I tell people the story of my vagina (which I inevitably do, I always do) I start with this; the smallest tampon... I start. Then, I drop in a fact: Before I gave birth it was a huge struggle to get the smallest of tampons inside of me. Oh yeah. The smallest of the tampons.

Prostitution is technically already legal in the UK. The exchange of sexual services for money is completely legal but engaging in practises such as soliciting in a public place and curb crawling are not.

As it is overwhelmingly women and girls who are bought by men, any policy which is constructed out of a denial of that truth is meaningless. If we stop for a moment and imagine that that statement reads 'it is overwhelmingly black people who are bought by white people' it's clear that no Human Rights organisation would be trying to obscure that fact in any policy.

Most of us could get more money and have more resources at our disposal in the private sector or even in the public sector. We do what we do because we identify with those for whom we advocate and are disgusted at the injustices they face. Surely we are doing a profound disservice to them if we choose to remain silent rather than joining with them in calling for changes that will improve their lives.

Is the 12 month deferral for gay men reasonable and evidence-based? We suspect it may no longer be so and the rules need to be reviewed to ensure no discrimination is taking place. There are, however, groups excluded by the blood donation rules permanently...

It is so important that these smaller charities receive exposure too as they vitally need funding as well. With this in mind, today I want to highlight a charity called "National Ugly Mugs" which aims at protecting sex workers from violent offenders.

As we approach a vital general election for the human rights and safety of sex workers the measures being presented by the parties in a policy area which seems - surprisingly, one might think - to transcend traditional left-right divides are more complex than ever

I can see why the BDSM community are up in arms. Here is a man who stalks his victim with a degree of fortitude that it's hard not to feel some begrudging sense of awe. He knows her bank details, in fact he has a built an entire file on her and flies out to interrupt a holiday with her parents, checking in to the same hotel as she's enjoying cocktails with her mother.

Soula believes each girl in the sex industry has a dream. It's what they focus on when the four red walls close in on them forcing them to question who they really are and why they're there. Without a dream, the hours, she told me, pass like hell.

The reporting of this tragedy has been almost exclusively focussed on how the two women were purportedly sex workers, although Hong Kong police have not said as much. The killings are immediately characterised as American Psycho-style murders, giving them an aura of glamour. And predictably, within hours of his arrest, there was another woman in Jutting's life to cast blame on.

Supporters of Lord Morrow's Bill eliminated from their agenda the safety of the very women they claim are vulnerable. They attempted to defame those who do not back the criminalisation of the purchase of sex as supporters of sex trafficking in order to undermine their arguments. They should have properly examined the available evidence and consulted with those to whom the legislation applies: sex workers themselves.

As a full-time journalist I'm constantly exposed to the shitty, bleak side of life. As a result, I've learned not to sentimentalise and that certainly benefits me in this role. Because there is no point in breaking down in tears while a sex worker tells you she has been raped or robbed or both. It doesn't help. What I can do is empathise. Provide a hug. Organise immediate, practical assistance such as food, clothes, medical care or arrange police intervention. Violence against sex workers is a huge problem and this is exacerbated by the fact that selling sex is, after all, illegal.